Laboratories
| The weekly
laboratory exercises are 3
hours long. We meet in 3310 and 3314 Chamberlin Hall. Labs start on the
week of January 28. More information regarding the lab and lab procedures are available in the printed Physics 202 Lab Manual (available at the bookstore) and at the Physics 202 Lab web server. Follow the "General Instructions" in the laboratory manual (pages 5-15). Please read the instructions for each lab before attending the lab session. You are required to keep a lab notebook. The lab notebook must be spiral bound, preferably with cross-hatched ruling. Bring this notebook to the first lab. The experiments are to be written up during the laboratory period in the lab notebook. The lab notebook is not to be taken from the lab. There will be a quiz on the lab every week, and there will be two formal lab reports. The specific details regarding the lab reports will be outlined later. The lab quizzes and lab reports will form the basis of your lab grade. You must attend lab only in the time slot for your session. A valid excuse and the permission of both TA's are required if you have to attend an alternative session. A make-up slot is scheduled on every exam week (see the syllabus). Labs can only be made up in the midterm exam week that immediately follows the missed lab; for example, if you miss the second lab, it can only be made up during the week of the first midterm exam. There will be no exceptions to this rule. Please inform your TA that you need to make up the lab ahead of time so that arrangements can be made. Labs are mandatory. Each missed lab automatically lowers your final course grade by half a letter grade point. |
| Week of | Lab | Description |
| Jan 21 | None | First week of classes. |
| Jan 28 | E-1 | Electrostatics: This lab first investigates types of charges and the forces between them by experimenting with everyday objects. Then you use an electroscope to understand how electrons move in conductors, and how other nearby charged objects influences this charge motion. |
| Feb 4 | EC-2 | Electric fields: Here you experimentally map the relation between electric fields and electric potential using a sheet of graphite paper. This leads to an intuitive understanding of many electrostatic configurations. |
| Feb 11 | EC-3 | Resistor and capacitor circuits : In this lab you explore resistor and capacitor circuits, and use computer to record voltage signals from a propagating pulse in an RC model of a cell membrane. |
| Feb 18 | None | Exam week. Possible make-up of missed labs. |
| Feb 25 | E-4 | Magnetic fields and forces : In this lab you investigate the force on a moving charged particle (a current) by a constant magnetic field. You use this to make a measurement of the charge-to-mass ration (e/m) of an individual electron. |
| Mar 3 | EC-5 | Magnetic induction: Here you investigate Lenz' law and the Faraday effect. Both of these arise from the generation of an electromotive force (or equivalently, an electrostatic potential) by a time-varying magnetic flux. |
| Mar 10 | None | Exam week. Possible make-up of missed labs. |
| Mar 17 | None | Spring break. |
| Mar 24 | EC-6 | Cathode Ray Oscilloscope and DC Amplifiers: This lab focuses on the basic operation of a cathode ray oscilloscope, which is used to observe the voltage vs. time behavior of electrical signals. |
| Mar 31 | E-7 | AC Circuits: In this lab you explore the voltage and phase relations in series and parallel AC circuits. |
| Apr 7 | SC-1 | Waves on strings: Here you investigate the propagation of transverse standing waves on strings. |
| Apr 14 | None | Exam week. Possible make-up of missed labs. |
| Apr 21 | LC-2 | Mirrors and Lenses: Here you investigate image formation, primarily with lenses. Using refraction, lenses bend light rays to reconstruct an image which is located at a different position from the object and is of a different size. |
| Apr 28 | LC-1 |
Diffraction and interference:
You will use diffraction and interference to directly demonstrate the
wave nature of light. |